Hacker NewsTuesday, December 30

This photography tutorial explains how digital cameras process raw sensor data to create color images. It demonstrates the steps from grayscale sensor readings through color filter arrays, demosaicing, brightness correction, and white balance to produce a final Christmas tree photo that matches human perception, showing how much processing occurs behind the scenes in digital photography.

The author describes a nightmarish Deutsche Bahn train journey on Christmas Eve 2024, attempting to travel 35km from Cologne to visit his grandmother in Meckenheim. Due to track issues, his train couldn't stop at Troisdorf where his father was waiting and instead continued non-stop for 55 minutes to Neuwied, taking him 63km away from his destination and into a different federal state. He compares the experience to being kidnapped or transported like livestock, noting he received only 1.50 EUR compensation below the minimum payout threshold.

You can create custom HTML tags instead of using generic divs and spans, which browsers will recognize and style with CSS. Custom tags with hyphens are guaranteed not to conflict with future HTML standards. This approach improves code readability by making nested structures more descriptive and easier to navigate compared to counting closing div tags.

Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD PROJEKT and GOG, has acquired GOG from CD PROJEKT. GOG will remain independent with the same DRM-free mission to preserve classic games and ensure true ownership. User accounts, libraries, and offline installers remain unchanged.

A developer created Z80-μLM, an extremely small 2-bit quantized language model that runs on a Z80 processor with 64KB RAM, fitting entirely in a 40KB file. Despite severe constraints, it can play simple 20 Questions and maintain basic conversations through clever optimization techniques.

AI's massive demand for memory chips has created a global shortage, driving RAM prices up 50% this quarter with another 40% increase expected. Chipmakers like Micron are prioritizing high-end AI chips over consumer products, leading to higher costs for smartphones, computers, and other devices through 2026.

A free educational resource offering computer graphics lessons from beginner to advanced levels. Covers 3D rendering fundamentals, mathematics, geometry, digital imaging, procedural generation, and development tools through hands-on tutorials and theory.

The author defends their "cynical" advice about navigating big tech companies, arguing that a small amount of cynicism helps engineers work effectively within large organizations. They contend that the idealist view of refusing to compromise is actually more cynical, while engaging in organizational politics to deliver meaningful improvements to millions of users is genuinely idealistic.

The author built MacThrottle, a macOS menu bar app to monitor thermal throttling on Apple Silicon Macs. After experiencing performance issues with M2 MacBook Air when using 4K displays, they discovered that Apple's ProcessInfo.thermalState provides less granular thermal data than powermetrics, which requires root access. They found that thermal data from thermald is accessible via Darwin's notification system without root privileges, allowing them to create a SwiftUI app that displays thermal state through a color-coded thermometer icon in the menu bar.